Friday, July 3, 2015

Filling KRA Itax Returns - You Now Have Up To Sunday

Models line up in a mock queue on Mombasa Road to demonstrate the
frustration of filing tax returns manually during the launch of KRA’s
online platform called iTax. You have until Sunday to file your tax
returns to be spared penalties.

You now have until midnight Sunday to file your tax returns if you want to avoid penalties.

The
Kenya Revenue Authority, in a statement to the media Thursday evening,
extended the deadline for filling tax returns until July 5.

Commissioner-General
John Njiraini had on Wednesday told Citizen TV that the deadline had
been extended to Friday, but the taxman again decided to further extend
the deadline to rope in as many Kenyans as possible.

WELCOME RELIEF

The extension comes as a welcome relief to many Kenyans who failed to meet the June 30 deadline.

Mr Njiraini said his agency would complete all the pending tax refunds by the first quarter of this financial year (October).

Many
people had blamed their failure to file their returns on time on
problems with the iTax system, an issue Mr Njiraini acknowledged, citing
challenges with Kenya's Internet connections.

"It is
true there are issues to do with speed, which are related to the stare
of Internet connectivity in Kenya, and the government is already
investing in broadband services across the country. We made the system
much more user-friendly compared with last year.

The system failed to generate passwords for many taxpayers who had either forgotten their passwords or were registering anew.

The
iTax system has been lauded for simplifying tax returns as the taxman,
whose revenue target is set at Sh1.358 trillion, passed the trillion
mark by the close of the 2014/2015 financial year.